128 PANIC FEAR IN MAMMALS 



when there were incubated eggs and fledgHngs In 

 the nests. 



Much more might be written on this theme, but 

 time and space are wanting, and the rest of this 

 chapter must be given to the subject of panic fear in 

 mammals, the class of animals in which it is most 

 noticeable. 



Those who have seen much of animals, wild and 

 tame and semi-domestic, are familiar with the pheno- 

 menon, and it is common to hear a person say of an 

 animal he had witnessed thrown into a state of 

 extreme terror for no apparent reason, that it acted 

 as if it had " seen a ghost." It is probable enough 

 that animals do see ghosts, or phantasms, seeing that 

 there are animal as well as human ghosts, also that 

 there is telepathy between man and animals; never- 

 theless, I believe that in most cases where an animal 

 has been seized by panic fear for no reason that we 

 can see, the ghost is nothing but a smell which 

 experience or tradition has made terrifying. It is 

 an associate feeling of the individual and of the herd. 



The most interesting instances I know of relate to 

 the domestic animals, cattle and horses, on the plains 

 or pampas of the Argentine, the greatest cattle and 

 horse-breeding region on the globe, where as many as 

 50,000 head of cattle were sometimes grazed on one 

 estate. No estates were enclosed in my time; it 

 was all open country, and the animals were semi-feral 

 in their habits, roaming at will over the plain, but 

 watched by the cattlemen and driven back when 

 going too far from their own lands. I know one 



